Food not Lawns

bamboo tetrahedron

trellises

Four Years Later

From this blog (BizMo Diaries), March 23, 2006. Addendum: Wayne Bishop, mentioned below, is a huge Jaime Escalante fan, and on Math Forum I proposed we continue sharing about his contributions as well. Both Fuller and Escalante received high awards from then USA president Ronald Reagan, in 1983 and 1988 respectively.

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From some airport departure louge, via wifi:

I continue to post to the Math Forum, albeit in a somewhat redundant way, trying to get more Fuller School memes accepted into the surrounding culture -- an uphill battle per usual (I'm very used to this terrain).

Like here (link) Wayne Bishop pooh poohs the idea that there's anything novel within the scope of K12 geometry, since his day in a one room school house some decades back. I again (for the maybe 200th time?) share what's new (link). And again, silence. Laziness? Complacency?

Whatever the logjam, USA civilian culture appears so not ready for this stuff. I'm hoping the computer science folks in Baghdad (aka Algebra City) will find a more receptive audience in the Pentagon, given all the close collaboration that's going on, in a more difficult military context.

Updating from a position near Fort Campbell (March 25):

I'll probe a bit more (link). Wayne replies: this Fuller School geometry (concentric hierarchy) is "absolutely, unequivocally" irrelevant to the general student population (link). His reply brings into sharp, crystal clear relief, my differences with his Mathematically Correct organization and its ideological fellow travelers.

Related reading:
Boosting Bandwidth
Revisiting Geometry (May 26, 2006)
Pentagon Math (June 22, 2006)
Geometry Text (March 28, 2010)

A Campus Household

We're a long way from Animal House, in terms of our role in the Global U. This is a really studious crew.

TM took herself to the main Multhnomah County Library on the bus, to get books on the American jury system, jury nullification and Constitutional law being foci these days, as well as the impact of new technologies on Supreme Court decision making.

LW was immersed in a video on the violent labor history of Colombia, the role of paramilitary groups. She also cooked some ethnic dishes, getting creative with our spices.

I finished cleaning the freezer in the basement, and pumped out more Rad Math, cuing for an Alice in Wonderland reference on math-teach. Much earlier this morning, at the hospital, I did some programming for a client, or should I say studied some programming a client had done. This evening, I read up on Python 3.1.2, some of the new features.

I'm not sure what NC was up to, but then scholarship is his way of life, even when he's camping out somewhere.

We're not entirely in our own little worlds.

TM and I talked about the Internet and Wikipedia. She's quite aware of how shoddy and poorly organized are so many Internet sources, compared to what you might find in books. She appreciates blogs for being better than average, because here people put their names on the line and tend to want to be taken seriously, do more homework. I recounting some of my travails writing for Wikipedia, on that Synergetics article in particular. She was happy to hear Lionel had been involved, remembers his visit fondly.

I watched most of the Colombia video with LW, with TM catching part of it.

NC and I discussed the Iranian situation again, more of the usual global grid talk (we're both World Game veterans from when RBF was better appreciated, another radical we've both studied).

I consented to run the heater for a short while, cleared the idea of mowing the lawn with LW. Other household decisions happen collectively.

Given the nightmare of history, I'm eager to spread a knowledge worker aesthetic and keep to a highly civilized standard. The state of Kerala, discussed during our Wanderers retreat, might be a role model in some ways.

Better policies arise from more informed participation, not from leaving everything to titular leaders.

TM misses our not having any TV at all, misses CBS News in particular as do I, though we still have it on the Internet.

The Global U idea is poetic, like Spaceship Earth. Affiliating with actual campuses, such as the Pauling Campus, is what houses like ours should be up for.

A circuitry of exchange might then be more formalized and computerized.

Imagine large numbers of households wiring up to schools as a part of a new design pattern. The devil is in the details of course and I'm not saying I have all the answers.

Seeking alternatives to violence through citizen diplomacy might be one of the stated missions for this program. Scholarships might come through the State Department in some cases? I know this guy in Indonesia eager to study Python. This could be bigger than the Peace Corps, with Portland an administrative hub why not?

Tourism has been one way to lower xenophobia around the world, but the most scholarly are not the most likely to frequent leisure class hotels. Future diplomacy will be more effective in proportion to the level of realism people bring to their positions, versus stereotypes and crazy-making projections.

World Lifestyles

You may have seen those books, where people stand, usually outside, in front of a dwelling, surrounded by possessions and/or foods, supplies, the stuff that they go through at some rate. We all go through stuff, one way or another.

A common misconception regarding Wittgenstein's philosophy is that it was about somehow purging ethics or aesthetics from the mix, by isolating empirical science and keeping that as "positive", with everything else "negative" (e.g. religion) slated to fall by the wayside. This story then becomes the "linguistic turn" for these believers, another bedtime story.

What we discover about lifestyles is they seek to make sense against a larger backdrop or cosmology. If humans are indeed information harvesters and problem solvers, have that in their nature somehow, one could say by design or by roll of the dice, then it stands to reason they would feel discomfort or judge inferior, a lifestyle wherein harvesting didn't happen, and problems were not tackled, sometimes solved.

The war colleges are cranking out the science fiction again, about the temporary bases, still in Korea after all these years, or in Japan. Those of us old enough to remember the Peace Dividend and Beyond War years may recall the rhetoric of "repurposing". Perhaps the "mad men" of today (those experienced with psychology) realize that military units wish for continuity as units, as specific groups or wings with lore and pride. Civilians have those wishes too. Nor is it either/or. At least bases make more sense that aircraft carriers, some say.

Bases might have medical facilities, prototype and production emergency shelter options, various grades of transitional accommodations. Evacuees might be flown in. Sometimes the compassionate thing is to rescue civilians in large numbers. Bases could help with this. Large scale operations take a lot of logistics, strong organizational structures.

Saturday Academy Luncheon

:: zoo venue ::

Radical Math Planning

a 10-frequency flextegrity tetrahedron

Fortunately for our latest media campaign, "radical" has a conservative, established meaning in mathematics. The radical sign designates the nth root of a number, by default its second.

Our zip code area, 97214, is cram packed with talent. The TV series would be fantastic, but off beat, more underground comic than Hollywood blockbuster. The birthplace of the Silicon Forest has its attractions. Hawthorne Boulevard used to be named Asylum Avenue according to the tableau at Fred Meyers.

Glenn Stockton has assembled the simple ways to come up with the key edge lengths you'll need, using just a compass on paper, to construct such as the unit-edge cube with body and face diagonals, of radical(3) and radical(2) respectively. The unit-edge tetrahedron slips right in, a smooth segue to our Concentric Hierarchy, core to our curriculum in 97214.

Saturday Morning

Long night at Laughing Horse. I went home alone early with the gear, had some business to attend to. The others came home later, shared tea with me in the kitchen.

We shared milk with the pets this morning, which seems extravagant, what was left in a cereal bowl. The bread was a cut above too. TV channels all blue still, since DirecTV pulled the plug. Have DVD and like that. Maybe a new sponsor will come along.

Let them sleep in. I've got work in my inbox, might get some R&R down the road.

Working the Lists...

Math Forum:
Re: Metric System (not the only)
Re: Math Anxiety and Work /Study alternatives (for credit)
Re: Tetravolumes as a proposed standard
Re: Story problems
Re: Physical Activity Levels (a variable)
Re: Calculus Mountain

Wittgenstein List: (these links unlikely to work)
Fwd: from a Fuller School list
Re: Family Resemblance and Mathematics

Synergeo:
Re: DC June
Re: Gnomon Studies, school standards
Re: Operational Mathematics (meaning through use)
More Storyboarding (Digital Mathematics Curriculum)

PSF list:
members only

WQM / MG list:
approved sheepdoctor

By some lights, there's no "working" here, just goofing off (aka futzing around) on the Internet.

Then there's other stuff that I did today. Twenty blocks walking. Yemen a topic (I've never been there). Touched base with AFSC last night, not just about Haiti. A call about Africa (Uganda).

Our company's best cook is away on leave so I'm the chef by default. I'm making: an onion potato and broccoli topping (oil, water base), over brown rice and some kind of bean. I'll have some popcorn later.

Others in this radical household have already turned in for the night (that would include the pets). Nope, spoke too soon.

Is there a radical middle? Was Ben Franklin a radical? I'd call him a revolutionary certainly.

How about Mark Twain? Have you read his more satirical "adult" essays? His anti-imperialist invective?

Before these listservs (mail reflectors) became relatively easy to join, a group called Action Linkage encouraged people to run these by snailmail. I joined at least a few such groups from my mailing address on Rhine Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

I was also an early adopter of an IGC account, using PeaceNet I'm pretty sure, through dial-up access. This was pre Web.

I'd read Network Nation (Turoff & Hiltz) in Jersey City, along with Computer Lib / Dream Machines (Ted Nelson). These works spoke to my condition. When hypertext (http) finally arrived, I was hot to trot. The Zeitgeist was strong within me, some philosophers might say, although that's not something unique about me -- the very meaning of Zeitgeist in a nutshell (it's not about any one of us, we share in the spirit).

As a Quaker, I have other words besides Zeitgeist I might use. In Synergetics, the Holy Ghost is mentioned, probably not in itself sufficient to make it a Catholic title. I've seen Noosphere. Some speak of telepathy, with or without allegiance to a God concept (many namespaces == many ontologies). We often speak of Spirit or Light, preferring to attend to it than to define it.

Placing a premium on intuition is what it comes down to in practice sometimes. I know Applewhite relied on intuition quite a bit, which likely explains why he worked with Fuller as well as he did, despite ups and downs (we had those too).

Wanderers 2010.03.02

I just finished my meeting with Patrick, who is looking hard at various psychometric issues around education initiatives.

That sense of young people running away from technological careers is haunting a lot of people. Recruiting is a concern. What would the commercials look like (in theaters?), what would be their aesthetics?

The National Guard has been facing this question. Disaster relief, after an earthquake, eruption, tsunami, flood or storm, have been realistic enough themes. The prospect of getting stop-lossed in Iraq isn't mentioned.

My mind drifted back to Journal Square in Jersey City, and the two big ideas I'd sought to champion, as a penniless individual:

(a) put IMAX in the Stanley Theater so area universities could assign for-credit viewings, in addition to serving the general public

(b) put a high resolution illuminated billboard on the back of Loew's, with a Fuller Projection as one of the display options.

Some of the IMAX films I imagined the universities would assign had a distinctly geometrical flavor. I was just starting my study of Synergetics at the time, plus had taught high school mathematics for two years.

Having an IMAX sized screen doesn't mean only using that format.

Back to Patrick's problem, he's definitely interested in 60-degree coordination motifs. You could think of bees, or hexagons, as symbolic here. The flavor is biological, organic chemical. Posting these remarks from the Linus Pauling House seems highly apropos.

An effective recruiting commercial helps one project oneself into some positive future, doing something vital (critical) as well as technical. Minus a credible curriculum, the PR comes across as hollow.

Having the futuristic backdrops be real, not just movie sets, adds credibility, but then is this a positive future we're showing?

Getting stuck in some tent in the desert, unwelcomed by locals and forgotten by an inattentive public back home, is hardly anyone's idea of rewarding community service. The movie Jarhead looks at this existential predicament.

Exchange with Japan?

Those few of you following these blogs closely, have seen the various references to a set of international schools, some of them within the Lower48 + Alaska + Hawaii, others not.

Students tunnel through a sequence of these schools in the course of getting their educations, with many families already accomplished hosts, others still in training. The school dormitory is the more well trodden path in some neighborhoods, as we're talking about a kind of boarding school, for students far away from home.

More recently, I've been storyboarding a TV series involving a tropical paradise. Coconuts count as money, with the thermodynamics of "open system Earth" spelled out in some segments (lots of computations with energy). Think of Bill Nye the Science Guy as an influence.

These same coconuts are also stand-ins for idealized spheres, forming the basis for triangulations (three coconuts) of the island's topography, and tetrahedralizations (four coconuts) of various spatial designs (such as kites).

These tropical island animations (anime) will be standalone and/or dropped into contextualizing shows. Think of Sesame Street as another influence. I call them "mathcasts" because of their somewhat high level of mathematical content. We're doing a lot with polyhedra for example.

Finally, I'm looking at some TV documentary about Portland's under-culture and its ties to the Silicon Forest. Japanese audiences have an interest in high technology. Then there's the music scene and youth concerns, such as peak oil.

Laughing Horse Books and Video is nothing more than a simple storefront, nor is Duke's Landing all that visually imposing. Would there be any tie to ONAMI? Through Linus Pauling House, yes, though perhaps a tenuous one.

Speaking of science and the Pauling Campus, ISEPP has a lot of raw footage, as earlier noted. This treasure trove might be edited to tell more of the Linus Pauling story as well, how his boyhood home became a headquarters.

I'm not the only historian telling this story, have my version connecting to Quakers on nearby Stark Street, thanks to the ESI connection.

There's a kind of intellectual tourism one might do here without leaving one's chair, but if making a documentary, it'd be worth making the rounds and taping these places for real, while they're still in fairly good shape.

The interviews would need to be translated. I've got some HD previews, they're not suitable for Youtube (or other public venue) at this time. Besides, my camera work is somewhat amateurish.

Learning On-Line

:: elluminate session ::

:: maria moderating ::

Just like in the non-virtual world, I barged into the wrong room, took my virtual seat, and started wondering why this seemed like eXistenZ (a crazy movie).

Distance education is confusing sometimes.

Maria D. popped up in my gmail chat window warning me I was in the wrong room. Praise Allah for quasi-omniscience.

I jumped over to this other group, already in progress. Here's the anchoring web page.

Here's a link to the recorded session.

Related reading: posting to edu-sig (February 26, 2010)

Spring Cleaning

Some people wonder what it's like, collective ownership. They think a company must be very different, and yet an employee kitchen is a common feature of any ocean-going craft, a good shared metaphor, and sometimes the literal truth. So like my rice cooker is with the Laughing Horse crew, such that staff might feed itself. Other provisions schlep back and forth, such as many of the movies I've been reviewing. It's a videos collection, not just a books collection.

Speaking of kitchens, ours was long overdue for an overhaul, which I accomplished to some degree this first pass.

I do not glow with pride that I succumbed to habits of accumulation and am now saddled with a homeowner's inventory. What I would like is for more informal meetings to occur such that I am able to treat my visitors with gifts, which they could hint about. I have some interesting articles of clothing, a book collection, some art, some kitchen supplies. These could become souvenirs, as many of them have been for me. Remember your visit, come again.

An exchange student could grab four or five outfits in route to a zip code area of longer stay (perhaps a horse ranch near Sisters), along with some interesting reading. I have many CDs. LW donated her collection to Muddy Waters during its attempt to stay afloat.

I spilled popcorn in the basement freezer awhile back and need to shop vac the thing, defrost it completely. I stuffed the smaller freezer upstairs, after doing some triage. Kind friends brought us provisions when my wife Dawn Wicca was going through her years fighting breast cancer. Not all of those provisions got used. She died at home, surrounded by family and friends, on March 17, 2007.

Again, I am regretful over having so much stuff. My desire to accumulate has been replaced by a wish to get a lot more bare bones, while also getting more opportunities to share information and compare notes with other Grunchies, other brands of diplomat-scholar.

The cook and volunteer grounds keeper (a musician, studying Spanish) is pretty good at getting us patched in to these Portland networks, education-wise. I'm looking forward to leading more Martian Math classes at Duke's or wherever. The other night was a blast.

Dr. Tag, faculty member, is well connected within the United Nations, as well as to local universities and colleges, other NGOs, so that's another source of hope.

Remembering New York

From some back office email:

For my part, I've been mostly piloting a high school course. I was a full time high school math teacher, before working at McGraw-Hill in computer literacy texts (did some other stuff in between).

LOGO and BASIC were where the junior high market was heading (1980s), not anything I had any control over or any say in. I was low on the totem pole, evaluating others' submitted texts and rolling my own for possible future textbooks.

Publishers hedge their bets by exploring in-house a little, trying to stay ahead of the curve. Not saying they do a lot of this. Depends who they bring on, plus 1980s was a heady time. Hugh Kenner was writing a regular column for McGraw-Hill's BYTE: Eliza versus Racter (early conversation bots) was a memorable one. My office mate Ray Simon and I tracked Dr. Kenner in other contexts as well (a talented writer, famous James Joyce scholar).

One of my tasks was to show off LOGO as more general purpose, without relying on the turtle feature as much. I'm reminded of Daniel Ajoy's work. He went much further in this direction (I know him from edu-sig).

One could argue I should not have been wasting my time with LOGO, should have been tasked with showcasing LISP or Scheme. Take it up with my bosses.

I had some cherished reforms of my own I'd have liked to introduce (more emphasis on world geography, cartography is a mathematical discipline), but the drum beat was California and Texas.

These were the big markets and we would jump through their hoops.

This was all before much electronic publishing and the subsequent breakup of monopolistic empires based on the economics of wood pulp.

Back in those days, a lot of us thought computer programming would be sweeping into the schools thanks to the PC revolution.

To some extent it did, but scientific calculators had claimed their place in the sun, and in math class at least, more or less monopolized as the only technology in the classroom -- right through the free software revolution to this day in 2010. Who could have guessed it?

I'm talking somewhat parochially in any case, as not every economy is taking this same route. Some are leapfrogging the calculator era, jumping right into computers. South Africa is an innovator, not just copying or importing reforms.

I don't think Papert or anyone else anticipated the Lego Mindstorms phenomenon, which took the LOGO lineage back to its robotic roots.

Papert did a good job of explaining his vision, his dreams, but then what happens next is not so predictable.

By the same token, Albert Einstein was not "the inventor of the atomic bomb" even if his clear articulation of mass-energy equivalence is what got that ball rolling.

Personally, I'd consider the rise of procedural programming far less of a disaster than nuclear weaponry nor would I lay it at any one person's feet.

I don't blame Bill Gates for the vast army of Visual Basic programmers trying to use .NET on Windows, even though his knowing BASIC was one of the early dominoes. Who predicted .NET back then?

Why not be charitable?

On the topic of .NET, what's the status of IronScheme I wonder, and does it run on Mono. Let me go Google... Found the stub on Wikipedia.

Remembering Boston

Carol, my mom, phoned from her airplane seat this afternoon, having landed in Boston. She got there early, to prep for a meeting she's co-organizing. Her aim is to be catalytic and effective, not be some kind of dictator or boss. She's pretty good at her job.

AFSC flew me out to Boston many years ago, to (a) attend the Manhattan Project II meetings and (b) research the AFSC's youth program in that city.

Daniel Ellsberg was a keynote on (a), sharing his vision of massive cleanup efforts, rivaling Manhattan Project I in terms of commitment and scope. The OMSI exhibit on Hanford, site of Manhatten I, or parts of it, relayed the huge and ongoing investment, as people work to save the Columbia Gorge from even higher levels of contamination. Other cleanups are also underway, with no end in sight at the moment. So Daniel Ellsberg was right.

My research on (b) helped me envision programs for Portland, on which LAAP and UV were later based. I don't take all the credit, as my role was to help locate and hire staff. The staff (Don, MaryAnn, Pam... Marco) then implemented some of the many of the proposals. Those were some golden years. I treasure my few momentos, such as two Certificates of Appreciation on the wall of my office.

During that same visit, I took in the Mapparium, noted the control room. The need for reliable global data, in close connection with decision-making, is a theme now as much as then. Wherever the headquarters may be, one needs timely and relevant input, otherwise one just works in the dark. Satellites have greatly improved matters. So have individual travelers, uploading to Flickr, Picassa or wherever else. My thanks to Nirel for the India pix.

Continuing Threads

We've had a lot of good discussion this month on math-thinking-l. The computer science group wants to work with the math teaching group, that much is clear.

I'm thinking big picture in this thread on math-teach, dreaming up ways to continue offering remote basing as a lifestyle, yet closer to home and for different skills building reasons.

I filed some more autobio to the Wittgenstein list, as a way of getting some math tied together.

Wheels Turning

I met up with a friend at Safeway, a death and dying counselor and teacher, among other skills. I've been facing a lot of that lately. While she waited for her car to get worked on, we walked back to Lyrik, where I'd not been in quite awhile. Joe was painting a new sculpture.

At both Safeway and Lyrik, I worked on some hard writing, often deleting and starting over. This was to math-thinking-l. I'm glad Maria came back and quizzed me, regarding what pilots had been completed. Reflecting back on my work, I feel like it got some wheels turning, ones that we needed to have turn.

That our household works this hard for no compensation, on getting the local economy back on track, is hardly the capitalist model. More of a war time model if you ask me. Ben Franklin loyalists, leading a 2nd American Revolution, versus the inertial conditioned reflexes of a vast army of mindless consumers trained to stay greedy and ignorant. At least the USA was on our side, if not its would-be puppeteers.

A Python VM in Go?

Python currently has three to five VMs, depending on who you talk to and how you're defining a VM. The obvious ones you will get in Eclipse are the C, Java and C# VMs.

A Go VM would of course leverage the advantages of a Go engine, while allowing continued use of Python as the API of choice.

Per studies at Michigan State, other anecdotal evidence, using Python as a "gateway language" has none of the negative connotations of "teaching language" in the sense of "you'll never see this in the real world". You'll see Java too.

PyPy and UnLaden Swallow may be added to the list. I don't know enough about Parrot to say anything intelligent about it.

To keep any of these subcultures going, students need ample time to poke around in the inherited libraries, getting their feet wet with what a language might do. Java's class library is quite vast, whether accessed natively or through Jython.

Non-programmers maybe think "a computer language" has nothing to do with "a literature", as if just knowing a few rules of syntax is all one would need to just buckle in and go. On the contrary, those few rules of syntax then gain you entre to a vast forest of goodies.

No one explores a vast forest over night though. Providing ample time for exploration is a precondition for getting any work done. Work / study is a repeating cycle.

Just because you "know English" doesn't mean you've studied Shakespeare. To each language, a literature pertains, a library. Heritage matters. Javascript, Objective C, PHP... these are APIs to tool sets, control panels to multiple engines.

Note: a VM is a virtual machine, as distinct from a library. The job of a VM is to run a lower level language generated by a higher level language as a result of an interpretive process. Both Python and Java compile to bytecode languages for runtime execution. You may distribute these bytecode files without the source if you wish, licenses permitting.

Disconnecting the Dots

I believe I have found the one lesson plan, in all the math-related lesson plans officially blessed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which introduces measuring volume with a unit tetrahedron.

The author of this lesson plan is following a template, considered illustrative of best practices, so my remarks below should not be construed as a critique of one writer. Rather, I am pointing out what I think is broken about math teaching: it is deliberately bereft of an historical dimension, is divorced from any storytelling, any lore. As such, the math is missing a Z axis, a depth dimension. The math is flat (as in beer).

There's a stated goal of studying the relationship between edges, surface area and volume, when the angles remain constant (when the shapes grow and shrink while remaining self similar).

A tetrahedron is constructed, then doubled in length along each edge through a process of stacking four of them corner-to-corner, leaving the octahedral void of the octet truss at the center. Welcome to the CCP (IVM, FCC).

This octahedral void is then made into a shape (not illustrated) and dissected into pieces according to the sequence below, to show that its volume is 4x that of any of the original tetrahedra.

from Synergetics Folio

The volume 8, 2-frequency tetrahedron assembled from 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 is called a Kite for some reason, perhaps because kite string is used (or crotchet thread). Those familiar with the lore know that Alexander Graham Bell created kites of this nature, but his name is not mentioned. The teacher may know. The storytelling is left to the teacher.

So now you have some story. Discover more. Encourage your students to do likewise. Lots to learn. And the math topics will keep weaving in.

Once you learn about hexadecimals and Unicode, you will be ready to think about bracelets, like you might receive upon check in to a Club Med resort. Do these show your name in your native Chinese or Thai, or do they just show bar codes or what? Likewise in hospital work: how much of your own language will you get to see on the monitors? Unicode helps, but the mathematics is complicated, lots of trade offs to consider (like why retire perfectly good equipment even if the newer stuff has more bells and whistles?).

LW was on KBOO (FM radio) tonight briefly, abiding by all the rules (Portland's left is highly professional). I was getting my shoes on for PPUG when she came on. Then I decided I needed to blog about this lesson plan, and how difficult it is for storytellers to make up for all the missing storytelling.

Having more literate well-read mathematics-aware students and teachers is always a godsend. That's why we form schools, user groups, collectives, clubs. We look for good company.

Anyway, not to pick on the NCTM too much, but I do find it ironic that they're building their old logo here, the one their lawyers told them to back away from. There's a story there too.

Just call me old skool.

Connecting with Friends

:: click for context ::

This rough sketch from the GENI web site includes Portland, a point of interest around here.

I've just added some new blurbs to the BFI web site, archiving with Pauling Campus engineers, suggesting Quaker organizations might affiliate with GENI more directly, why not?

AFSC and FCNL are both boasting "green buildings" these days, and this project is about intelligently designing our shared energy infrastructure, including in the Middle East.

More to the point, collaborating on global infrastructure is how we focus on ethical uses of technology, removing the occasion for wars.

Friends also have their scattered schools, so it makes sense to connect other dots as well. Perhaps our Computational Thinking course will attract a few teachers?

In terms of branding the stuff as specifically Quaker (a somewhat whimsical notion), I've already done some work to keep that possibility alive.

We want our children to be proud of our taking a lead role when it mattered.

Jotting Notes

I was helping my Indonesian student again tonight. He's an undergraduate from physics in the State University of Surabaya and is learning English and Python at the same time, tackling a really steep learning curve.

I referred to him on edu-sig, also sent him that link to the IndonesianLanguage page at Python.org (hi Carl), not sure if that helped at all.

We use a shared whiteboard sometimes, type code back and forth. What about Python tutorials? Dive Into Python is an old favorite. Even this WikiEducator page is pretty good, ahem (note: WikiEducator will be out of service on February 6 as WE upgrades to the new WYSIWYG editor). Think Python is good.

Teacher Training:

A PCC person and I met before class yesterday (she's a teacher). The meeting was not about Python this time. Portland Community College has a building near OMSI. I had a meeting there about Python awhile back. That was not about teacher training though. The math-through-programming idea was still pretty new in 2010.

Speaking of adult education (andragogy), I did not manage to access the virtual classrooms at Educon (Philadelphia) via Elluminate. Maria had sent around a heads up. Lots of logistics, somewhat ambitious. Pycon doesn't even try to stream live. I'd seen a couple talks listed that appeared to be about digital math.

Teachers are organizing across the land to come out with a more world class mathematics track. However there's not much uniformity, based on my windows into the action. Lots of experiments (and that's as it should be). Nor is it clear, based on feedback from Korea and MIT, that an "always on-line" style will promote focus and concentration.

Multitasking may trash one's ability to write lengthy coherent thoughts? Essay questions elicit single paragraphs, in a style more like here: fragmentary (these are jottings). Korea now has detox centers for students overly addicted to digital distractions. Games tend to be implicated as neurologically addictive.

Recruitment:

The effectiveness of computer games as recruitment devices is undeniable. The institutions behind them create the live opportunities though, for better or for worse, so best to not reflexively blame the fantasies. Advertising a game as a recruiting tool adds some serious spin.

Philanthropic gaming (per CSN) might likewise inspire higher commitment levels, beyond donating profits as an outcome of game play. Disaster relief per Sims gets one thinking about logistics, supply lines, temporary facilities. Health workers have many of the same concerns as soldiers in the field (often the same field).

Reported story: Laughing Horse collective did direct service to homeless people all day today. All the gear was disbursed, as well as vegan food. Cold rainy night. Military surplus sleeping bags most welcome.

Education Proposals:

Most grant proposals for education seem to focus on developing new web sites, less on developing educational games or providing teacher training. I agree web sites have an anchoring role. Sponsors like to have their logos displayed. However, organizations need to be known for their people too. A website and nothing more is too absentee.

Somewhat cross-disciplinary teams from the private sector might work with the teachers, not to replace them but to equip them with new skills. Unions need not object in that case (this is not an end run). Where is this model already working? Do we have allies in the UK?

Eliciting Versus Imposing Solutions:

There's no imposing a framework on people, if the goal is to have lasting institutions. Edicts from on high stir resentment and excite efforts to sabotage.

On the other hand, feuding factions may choose to import a management team, at least for the interim. Italian hill towns would sometimes bring in the mayor as an outside consultant. Visiting experts may help catalyze a framework, design new workflows, based on what has worked in other contexts.

Those village electrification projects in Borneo only work because of indigenous support for them, including with engineering. One needs to be able to diagnose and repair locally, perform routine maintenance.

However, the design for those tiny electrical plants (no dams required) came from multiplying experience around the world, especially in mountainous areas. Bhutan has micro-hydro as well. Every situation yields its lessons and "doing more with less" means not always repeating the same wasteful mistakes.

Villagers get Internet now (some of them), meaning these kids have a newly realistic option to stay in the village. Education comes to them. Place based education.

The Indonesian student I'm working with is highly self motivated.

Curriculum Delivery:

Creating cohesive and mutually supportive town-gown relations is part of the equation. I would gladly sit through classes on Wordpress, Django, Javascript, delivered by Wanderers I already know, maybe copying the four meeting format I used for teaching Python that time.

Lightning talks (five minutes) are at one end of the spectrum. Bucky's eight hour talks were further out, more like a serialized TV show.

The user group meetups give a foretaste, but many intelligent adults, eager for this material, would never think of attending a user group. How might we offer free classes? The Princeton Computer Center (another PCC) had those in my day, with members of surrounding community, not just students and faculty, welcome to attend. Reed College?

Free Skool provides another model for delivering curriculum, as does Laughing Horse Books, especially since the closing of Liberty Hall, although not to the degree Free Geek has been able, in terms of providing us with workstations (thinking back to my class for home scholars). West Precinct was in the forefront years ago, with that Red Hat lab.

How does one make work / study a safety net? Another on-line discussion. I've suggested programs for vets. Start the training even while awaiting rotation.

David Koski forwarded Magnus Wenninger's posting to the Polyhedron list, saying "But now I must tell you what I have to say. Ludwig Wittgenstein is my favorite philosopher..." (January 31, 2010).

My guy in Indonesia is back in his chat window. Gotta go. " thank u mr kirby I will always remember the kindness of Mr. Kirby."